


we could make it so divine

by Nitzer



Series: west coast [2]
Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, American AU, M/M, Prom, Sleepovers, Underage Drinking, a lot of mark's fantasies involve him in a dress and make up, and johnny just graduated college, at least lots of talk of prom, kinda it's the summer after mark graduates, make of that what you will, mark still has lots of vague sexual fantasies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-29
Updated: 2019-06-29
Packaged: 2020-05-30 18:21:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19408792
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nitzer/pseuds/Nitzer
Summary: Just whatever you want. Your wildest fantasies.





	we could make it so divine

**Author's Note:**

> no underage tag bc maybe Mark is 18 here but it's not specified  
> playlist for this fic: "Candy" by The Rose, "Magic" by Noir, "Dart" by Hyuna and either "400 Lux" by Lorde (if you want a lighter tone) or "Sober" by Lorde (if you want a darker tone)  
> title from "Ribs" by Lorde

Johnny is away at college while me and Jeno are at prom but he’s up in the bleachers when we graduate. A part of me that I hoped I had outgrown thinks about how picture perfect it would be to have my handsome, college-aged boyfriend there to watch me graduate. But he’s not my boyfriend, he’s not even there for me really. He’s there to see his brother and when the ceremony is over he gives me a congratulatory clap on the back. It’s less intimate than the hug my own brother gives me. The whole ceremony is for families anyway and, for once, I have no reason to hang around with Jeno.

I’m not even feeling the fantasy myself at my graduation. I feel like a little kid dressing up in my formal wear, like I look too much like an uncomfortable middle-schooler. I can fantasize about slipping my (rented) graduation robe off to reveal a short, glamorous little dress but there’s really nothing sexy or alluring about revealing a starched button-up and slacks. So, I joke around with Jeno for a minute or two, make stilted small talk with his parents and go back to my family.

After both of our graduation dinners—both of them at restaurants so fancy we have to keep our formal wear on—me and Jeno grab ice cream from one of those posh places downtown and go to a bonfire with the rest of our friends. Jeno drives me because he’s found the time to get his license already and I still haven’t, blasting Maroon 5 and Super Junior from his phone the entire trip. We both get the seasonal flavor, a watermelon sherbet for summer. I only think about how Johnny would like the flavor once or twice throughout the night.

Huddled around the bonfire at the beach I realize that the sweatshirt Jeno’s wearing is actually Johnny’s. It’s a soft and worn grey with the info for our school’s volleyball team in an ugly green. I’m not jealous per say, at least not like I’d been before. I’m not delusional and I’m not stupid. I just wonder how it would feel on me, how loosely it’d hang on my much smaller frame, if it still smells like Johnny. A too-big, spidery hand shoved into my face interrupts me. “Have a pocky, my love.” Lucas instructs, not offers.

I fake gag at the “term of endearment” I guess I could call it and bite the cookie in half. But I stop thinking about Johnny and wearing his clothes and waking up in his bed and sucking on his fingers. So I guess I could thank him.

Jeno’s parents take the first summer both of their sons are legally adults to go on a cruise. Which naturally means that I spend a lot of time at Jeno’s house with both him and Johnny. The first night I stay over I don’t expect to. Jeno picks me up to play some basketball in his driveway and hang out so I don’t bring anything with me. When I start nodding off to some action movie late into the night I finally realize that I’m probably staying over. “Are you gonna drive me home or should I borrow some PJs?”

“Me casa is su casa.” Jeno tells me, still entirely focused on the movie and using all of his two years of high school Spanish.

It’s not supposed to be anything. It’s supposed to be an entirely ordinary set of events. Me and Jeno had shared nearly everything in our years of friendship. I had used his _toothbrush_ before, sharing clothes was _nothing_. But when I get to his room Johnny’s old volleyball hoodie is draped over the back of his computer chair and it’s no longer about just me and Jeno. I slip it on without even thinking about it. It smells ambiguously like Jeno’s house (not the cologne Johnny’s been wearing since high school) and hangs loose enough on me that my whole shoulder can peek through the neck hole. It’s not everything I ever imagined but I guess nothing ever is.

The next morning Johnny is in the kitchen making himself coffee before I’ve even rolled out of Jeno’s bunk bed. When I finally drag myself downstairs to join him, I’m half-sheepish to be sleep-mussed and in PJs in front of Johnny and only half-conscious. He offers a warm but distracted “good morning” still looking down at his phone over the kitchen counter. When he does look up at me, he does an almost comical double-take, letting his eyes linger over the hoodie.

I almost forgot I was wearing it the same way I’ve almost forgotten the smell of Jeno’s house by now. “Is this…yours?” I ask, awkwardly plucking at the hoodie.

“It was.” he laughs. “I guess it’s up for grabs now.” He looks genuinely delighted to have found his old sweatshirt on me.

“Sorry, I’ll give it back once I get some clothes from my house.” I apologize hastily.

“Don’t bother.” He waves off. “I don’t think it fits me anymore, honestly.”

I’ve always known that Johnny was bigger and broader than me in every way imaginable. I’ve always _fantasized_ about it. The way his hands would eclipse mine, how easy it would be for him to pick me up, to throw me around, how his hand could easily wrap around any part of my body. But it’s different having concrete proof— _drowning_ in a hoodie that wouldn’t even _fit_ him anymore. I nearly choke on my own tongue when Jeno comes bounding down the stairs.

“Yo, hyung, we should get krispie kremes.”

“Jeno, you can go get donuts by yourself, you can drive.”

“Nope.” He argues, draping himself over the kitchen counter. “Still too sleepy, might get into an accident. Unless you made me coffee already.” He tacks on, eyeing Johnny’s mug.

Johnny sighs and gives me a look that says “what can you do?” but picks up his keys anyway. “Make them last.” He warns.

Jeno fist pumps into the air and we both climb into the backseat of Johnny’s car still in our PJs. It’s familiar, nostalgic almost, to share the backseat of Johnny’s car with Jeno—both of us laughing over something a no doubt shitfaced Lucas sent the groupchat last night. It’s not the same car as when I was twelve or thirteen, though, not the same me, not the same Jeno, not the same _Johnny_. Whenever we’re stopped at red lights, Johnny looks back at us in the rear view mirror—looks back at _me_ , I think. But I can dream up any fantasy I want, wrapped up in the confidence of Johnny’s jacket, spending a domestic morning with him.

Johnny finally gets a new car when Jeno gets his license. He hands his old, piece of shit down to Jeno even though it’s on its last legs. So his new car is completely foreign to me. I have no memories of sitting in the backseat with Jeno, coming home from practice. Or stuck in the front seat with Johnny, quiet and tongue-tied and _infatuated_. This is a clean slate to make the same mistakes on.

Jeno’s the one that suggests a trip to Target when the leftovers from his parents start to run low. It’s late when he realizes that the fried rice he’s eating is one of the last things left in the fridge. It’s significantly later than when we _should_ be thinking about grocery shopping or anything like it. But Johnny takes us anyway, letting Jeno commandeer the aux cord the entire ride. Target’s different at night—messier, emptier, almost _desolate_. It’s more fun that way too, to two nearly-adults who had spent years and years inventing games to entertain each other.

It’s not until we’re taken a decent chunk out of Johnny’s pocket money and are loading the bags into the car that Jeno hisses “fuck” desperately enough that I thought he dropped his phone and destroyed it. “I forgot the toothpaste.” He explains hurriedly. “You guys just stay here, I’ll be right back.” I don’t even have the chance to try to tag along before he’s dashing back across the parking lot towards the store.

Johnny grins at me awkwardly. “I guess this means you get to ride shotgun.”

I take up his offer uncomfortably but only because it seems a hair less awkward than sitting in the backseat like he’s my Uber driver or something.

He turns the radio onto a low hum because our pop station never played anything good, quiet enough that I couldn’t tell if it was the most recent Ariana Gande song or not. And we’re trapped here again, me picking at the hem of my shirt and Johnny trying to cut through the air of awkward I created. “I never got to ask Jeno, did you go to prom?” He adjusts the rearview mirror and catches my eye in it. It’s too dark in the parking lot to read his expression.

The question lands safely in-between his usual questions about sports or school and actually personal stuff that only Jeno knows about me. “Yeah, we both went.” I answer neutrally. For me prom was just overpriced and mediocre. It was my own fault, though. I never made any plans for prom, never had any expectations for it. I just bought tickets because all my friends did and lived in a fantasy that wasn’t even possible because Johnny was still away at college.

“Did you take anyone?” It’s the first time Johnny has ever even come close to asking about my love life. And it’s dangerous.

I didn’t take anyone. I guess, the closest I came to a date was Jeno who was also dateless (but I assume for very different reasons). And I could tell him that I went with Lucas or Wendy or any of my other friends, it wouldn’t make a difference. Prom wasn’t really about your date anymore, it was about celebrating, graduating, your whole high school experience. It was probably still the same idea when Johnny went to prom but his date is still burned into my mind. Her name was Jennifer and she was a warm and sweet honors student. I hadn’t heard anything about her since that prom but I wasn’t hoping to hear anything either. “I didn’t.” I tell Johnny because it’s the closest I can come to the truth without embarrassing myself for the rest of my life. Without telling him that I could never think about prom long enough to plan anything out, to _have_ expectations. Because I always got lost in the fantasy of being his prom queen first. I even imagine the dress I’d wear once or twice—something long, draped, partially sheer, elegant and provocative. But there’s no one to look at me that I care about so I end up in my brother’s old tux with no date.

I must’ve visibly deflated, thinking about fantasies that never come true, that impeded on my real life so bad I fucked up my own prom because Johnny lets his hand fall comfortingly on my shoulder. “There’s nothing wrong with going stag.” He laughs and it’s warm and deep and…just this side of relieved?

I don’t have time to decipher it because Jeno is already back, clambering into the backseat noisily. “So, Mark just gets shotgun?” He complains, shoving the toothpaste in with the other bags.

“ _You_ were the one that forgot toothpaste.” Johnny defends, sliding his hand down from my shoulder to my thigh like he was keeping me in place.

I don’t get to add anything to the argument, still relearning how to breathe, trying to figure out just how far my fantasies stretched into reality.

Here’s how my fantasy prom goes: smokey eye makeup, a draped and long and elegant dress (maybe a plum purple) and an elegant matte lipstick (maybe wine red). I sweep my hair over so it looks soft and feminine. Johnny picks me up in his own car (but it’s nicer, vintage instead of ancient and with a convertible top). We leave hilariously early, we’re only there to show up and show off anyway. We get in one good slow dance—Johnny’s hand falling just a little bit too low on my waist, me looking up at him through painted lashes the entire time. Then we dip. The streetlights light up the subtle shimmer on my face the entire drive. He doesn’t park in a darkened parking lot or take me home, he gets us a hotel room. Here the fantasy always changes. Sometimes he just palms me over my dress until I come under him, whispering “cute” with a smirk just condescending enough to set my insides on fire. Sometimes he really fucks me—sweet and slow like he knows it’s my first time and calls me “honey” and “angel.” Sometimes he fucks me rough, pushing me face-first into the hotel wall and gripping my hips so hard and tight my feet don’t even reach the ground. But he always showers with me at the end, always kisses me long and deep good night.

Here’s how my real prom goes: Jeno picks me up in Johnny’s old piece of shit car. We’re both wearing stiff tuxedos that aren’t really ours. We stay the whole time, until they shut the venue down. I dance to two and a half, maybe three songs either by myself or with a group of friends because I’ve taken dance classes since I could walk and now my friends are holding it against me. I only slow dance once. With Lucas. And that’s only because Lucas is convinced, for some reason, that this is the funniest joke in the world. I don’t get it. Jeno drops me off back home 100% sober and 100% still a virgin. The bonfire at the beach after graduation is a better and cheaper celebration. 

Jeno starts pestering Johnny to get drunk with us about three days into his parent’s vacation. He’s met with firm rejection and the threat that if he tries drinking in the house Johnny will “beat his ass.” But Jeno’s persistent, always has been, and by late night day two he’s worn Johnny down to “whatever you do, just leave me out of it.” By day three Johnny is worn-down and exhausted (which, surprisingly, is a look on him), not used to having Jeno’s whining and pleading focused on him and is reduced to, “I will buy you _one_ six-pack of hard cider and you have to share.” So he does.

Luckily cider is the kind of fruity shit I can actually stomach. Jeno doesn’t seem to have much of a plan for getting drunk with his brother. I think it’s one of those dumb things he just wants to do to have _done_ it. He throws on some interchangeable, stoner comedy. No one seems to care for it too much. But Johnny and Jeno are the same kind of drunk—gossipy and pliant. I learn things about their family that I never expect to, that I never _need_ to. They have a real idol cousin back in South Korea, not like Super Junior famous or anything but he’s been on a world tour. And they have an aunt who eloped with an American that they just never saw again.

In-between a story about how I’m pretty sure my grandpa just straight up evaded military service and how their uncle has given them both pajamas for every _single_ fucking Christmas of their lives we finish the hard cider. It’s fine, though, because Jeno fishes out some peach soju that their parents left behind. And it’s still the kind of fruity shit I can stomach. And Jeno starts getting sleepy, laughing at the movie more and dropping out of the conversation. Johnny starts telling me about some of his professors at college, some of his classes, some of his project partners but skillfully skirts anything close to his social life. I’m just tipsy enough to not catch onto it.

Jeno is fully passed out by the time we switch from peach soju to raspberry vodka (which is just the _trashiest_ fucking drink I can think of) that Johnny brought back from college. “So, you didn’t have a date for prom and Jeno didn’t have a date for prom?”

I hum out an almost uninterested affirmative.

“So did you guys like…go together?” He swirls an empty cider bottle in his hand, trying to look casual.

“Well, yeah, of course.” I answer, unfocused and foggy before I realize the _implications_ of everything. “I mean, his picked me up and dropped me off and everything but we didn’t go _together_. We _wouldn’t_.”

“Yeah?” He prompts.

“I could never even _look_ at Jeno like that.” I laugh. I glace over at his slack face, slumped over on the recliner. It’s cute and endearing but not for me. “And I’m pretty sure he’s 100% straight.”

“And you’re…?” He lets the question trail off, open-ended.

“I’m not.” I finish for him, vaguely.

“Oh.” And that’s all he says. It’s not disappointed or shocked or uncomfortable. It’s just a neutral acknowledgement.

“And?” I prompt, wearing confidence the same way I wrapped his hoodie around me. I know this would shake my sober self to his core but I’m not sober anymore.

“And nothing.” He smiles at me warmly with wordless acceptance. “I guess I just never knew.”

“Not a lot of people do.” I finish with a teasing pull from the bottle.

“Was there someone you wanted to take to prom with you?” He asks, neutral curiosity.

“No one that could go with me.” I answer as cloudy and foggy as I can while keeping a thread of truth in there somewhere.

He just nods at me and turns his attention back to the TV. I don’t know what he’s thinking. I don’t know if what I said was the right answer. I don’t know who’s two steps ahead of who in this little game of trading everything and nothing at once. I can’t tell who’s winning. (I don’t know if there’s even a winner to be had.)

The movie ends with some joke about weed and no real conclusion and the TV starts playing a music countdown show instead. I'm getting sloppy, drunker than Jeno and maybe drunker than Johnny, I can't really tell anymore. We're still on opposite ends of the couch with Jeno sleeping away on the recliner. It's a respectable distance because I spent my entire adolescence in America and lesson number one was always "the distance you should keep between you and other guys" with lesson number two being "how and when you're allowed to touch other men." It's burned into me. This is still reality.

But reality is slipping. I'm getting closer, unconsciously because it's the only thing I've ever wanted so bad it kept me up at night. Maybe Johnny isn't sitting flush against his armrest either anymore. Maybe I'm imagining things again.

I take an overeager pull off the raspberry vodka (which is sticky sweet and seems to coat my teeth with every sip) and feel it spill out of my mouth, down my chin, drip down onto my shirt. It's a rookie mistake from someone still learning how to be drunk, from someone trying their best to look like a confident little minx or a tempting little doe. I still don't know what he likes best. I stick my tongue out to lick off what's left without thinking of how it looks or the implications, without trying to see myself from some third person point of view first.

Johnny locks eyes with me while my tongue is still hanging out of my mouth. His eyes are half-lidded, maybe finally exhausted. Maybe from something else. 

I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand and hold his gaze.

"You're so fucking pretty, you know?" He laughs like he's genuinely awed, like it's news to him.

I don't know what to do. Because Johnny had always been sweet and warm and attentive, the kind of lover that would never run out of sweet nothings to say. And I almost always factored that into my fantasies. But none of my fantasies played out like this. I never get the guy in the end by doing something I don't plan on doing. All I do is make some kind of surprised noise that doesn't sound anything like a word.

"You're just so...pretty. Everything you do, always." 

I stare at him open-mouthed and I don't even know what I want from him. I don't even know how I want this one to play out. 

"Come here." He beckons—gentle, warm, nothing to hide. Like always. "Yeah?" He adds sweetly, turning it into a request.

I don't know what I want because this is real Johnny and I never experience real Johnny. I just take parts of him to weave the prettiest fantasy I can. I want fantasy Johnny to smash our mouths together, to let me get between his legs, to give me that barely condescending smirk that makes me whine out loud. I never _want_ anything from real Johnny. It just sets me up for disappointment. But, here's the fucking thing, I trust real Johnny. He's always been there for me, he's always done his best for me. I trust him.

And in crawling across the couch into his open arms, I realize what I want from him. From real Johnny. I want to sit in his lap just to be held. I want to bury my face in his neck and not pull away the second I wake up. I want to tell him how bad I wanted to be his prom queen. How I ruined my own prom because I couldn't see past him. I want to tell him things that not even Jeno knows. I want to tell him how much I trust him. (Not just how much I want to be fucked by him, how much I want to be wanted by him, how I want him to star in my fantasies.)

He doesn’t kiss me, not at first. He cradles my face like I’m precious, like I’m a piece of art in a museum. And he just looks at me reverently and my face flushes and my heart melts and I don’t even know what to with myself. His hands fit snugly around my waist (could probably meet his fingers in the middle if he tried) and he’s _so_ warm under me. The moment hangs between us, so sweet and heavy that I can’t tell if it’s real or fantasy. And then he does kiss me.

I can’t say if it’s everything I ever wanted, not with my head still swimming with terrible liquor and everything else. It’s good though, good enough to make my brain shut down for once. He kisses me slow and soft and sweet, both of us still drunk enough for it to be sloppy. When I part my mouth for him, he tastes like fruit punch and burning. He settles his hand just under my shirt, his fingertips barely on the skin above my waistband. And it’s such a tease, just barely touching. So I twist and turn, trying to get him to really _touch_ me. When his hand finally trails up my shirt and curls around my side I _moan_.

It’s so loud that me and Johnny jolt apart, both of us nervously looking over to where Jeno is still passed out on the couch. He hasn’t even stirred. Johnny catches my eye and I can’t help but giggling at the whole situation. Finally kissing Johnny in the living room of his parent’s house with Jeno passed out on the recliner next to us was never in any of my fantasies. It was straight up ridiculous.

“Should we take this to my room?” He whispers, his nose resting against mine, his face still close.

“Sure.” I’m still giggling softly. And it feels so good to follow his lead, to put myself in his hands, to live completely outside the fantasies I created and still get everything I want.

Johnny’s room is mostly bare with pictures of him in high school and graduating and at birthdays all over his walls. Most of his stuff is still hanging out of boxes, only half-unpacked since he got home. It’s not familiar to me at all. Might as well all still be a dream. Jeno and Johnny had separate rooms for as long I’d known them and I never spent much time in Johnny’s. He doesn’t leave me a lot of time to inspect, pulling me playfully towards the bed with him.

“Did you want to take me to prom?” He asks slyly, letting me settle on his lap.

“ _So_ bad.” I groaned. “I never planned a prom without you.”

He tilts my head back, cradling it gently with his hand while he places soft kisses on my neck. “I missed out.” He smiles up me with that warm, disarming smile that made him the sweetheart of our entire high school.

I just push him back onto the bed and kiss it off of him. And he lets me. And he's eager and accommodating and sweet and gentle. His big hands wrap around my waist and anchor me and I burn up in his hands. And I am so _happy_ to be there. I am so happy to know that he won't let me down. That he won't just drop me if I stumble in the role I assigned myself. Instead he'd catch me if I fell.

I don't know what this all means. I can't think too hard with his mouth trailing down my jaw and trashy, fruity liquor running through my veins. I don't know if this means he wants me for real. I don't know how long he has wanted me, if this is just a golden opportunity he refuses to pass up on. I don't know if this somehow, in some way makes me his prom queen now. I don't even know if either of us want that. I don't know if I'll still care about this or Johnny or anything else when I finally play this fantasy out to the end. I don't know if this is better than anything I ever dreamed, is more than I ever wanted.

I don't know what this means for when I go away to college in the fall. I don't know what this will be when Johnny starts his internship later this summer. Or when his parents come back from their trip. Or when Jeno wakes up. Or even what will happen when we both sober up. All I know is that I like kissing him. That his hands feel good on me. That his scent is comforting. That I'm not even thinking about a fantasy. Because I'm feeling everything like an electric jolt to my skin. And I think I'm finally ready to try the real thing. 

**Author's Note:**

> EDIT: i really super appreciate all the positive feedback from you guys <3 but this is (almost definitely) the last of this series from me but i'll open this au up to the public if you guys wanna do something with it, it's for your wildest dreams after all   
> [tumblr](angelinmyheartt.tumblr.com) [cc](https://curiouscat.me/Nitzer)


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